July 11, 1982: The day we became Canadian

Originally published in Corriere Canadese newspaper on July 11, 2017. Translation by Joseph Ciraco

Corso Italia St. Clair Ave W Toronto 1982

In 2017 we celebrate Canada’s 150^th birthday. There are many stories to tell, one of them being from the Italians.  Immigration isn’t something new to us. We Italians have been emigrating for hundreds of years and still continue to do so. Italian-Canadians have made an enormous contribution to Canada in its 150 year history. In 2017 the Italian community is respected and admired, but it wasn’t always this way. It took a soccer game and the party of the century to convince the broader Canadian population that we belonged.  For those unfamiliar, I’m talking about Italy’s 3-1 win over West Germany in the 1982 FIFA World Cup and the subsequent celebration on St. Clair Ave West, which at the time had the largest concentration of Italians in the city of Toronto. The celebration on the stretch of road between Dufferin St. and Caledonia was a legendary, historic event in the city’s history, over 250,000 people celebrated Italy’s third World Cup triumph.  

Toronto Sun front page July 12 1982

We repeated the same feat in 2006 along the same stretch of St. Clair Avenue West but in 1982 things were very different. We Italians were not exactly accepted into society yet. We were still seen as “foreigners” by the general populace. That celebration left a legacy many don’t know about and as a proud Italian-Canadian I wasn’t going to stand idly while the rest of Canada celebrated our historic birthday without telling the story of my people. After that night of July 11, 1982 things changed forever, for the better. Before we get into the details let’s first take a look at the history of Italians in Canada.

In Canada, Italian immigrants began landing on these shores in the late 1800s. We came here for the same reasons everyone did, to find work and build a better life. At that time work was limited to farming and the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. In the 1920s and 30s many Italian workers switched from farming to mining in Northern Ontario or headed south to the big cities of Montreal and Toronto. Urbanism was in full swing as both cities developed rapidly. When WW II began Italians were labelled “enemy aliens” because of fascist Italy. The Italians were put in internment camps along with German and Japanese citizens. Although in the decades following there were “apologies” from the government, there was never an official apology issued by the House of Commons for this gross abuse of human rights. The Japanese and Germans received their official apology as well as substantial reparations when the Italians got next to nothing. This racism carried over into the second mass wave of Italian immigration that occurred in the 1950s, 60s, 70s.

Italian prisoners of war at Camp 33 Petawawa Ontario circa 1940

The ironic thing about the mistreatment of Italians during this era is that despite not feeling welcomed in our new land we built a vast quantity of its urban infrastructure.  Virtually all construction in Toronto post  1950 was completed by Italians. Practically all the construction companies and developers were Italian. Roads, homes, transit projects, buildings, sewers, you name it, were built upon Italian blood, sweat and tears (and many Italians tragically lost their lives in awful working conditions).  In addition to this we introduced our food, products, music and colourful, passionate way of life to Canadians. At the time white Anglo-Saxons and Irish dominated Toronto’s population. The locals found our way of life odd and strange. Our slur for Canadians is a word called “mangiacakes” (cake eaters). It’s our way of describing Canadians at the time who were stern, and serious while also (still) not being able to cook as good as us. For “Toronto the Good” (a nickname given to the city because of its Protestant heritage and hard stance on morality and the law) Italians just weren’t good enough. Admittedly we didn’t help ourselves. In the early days Italian bakeries would firebomb each other to take out the competition and many high profile mob hits were carried out in Italian cafes in broad daylight. This caused stigma around our community as Italians were broadly described as backwards peasants who always carried a knife or gun on them. Italians would be harassed on the TTC with frequent threats such as “Get out of here you dirty WOP” and being under threat of arrest from the police. A common practice would be for Italians to be threatened with jail time if seen gathered on the street. The police thought they were “up to no good” while these poor men were merely listening to the soccer matches from back home on their transistor radios. Although the stigma lessened going into the 1970s it still largely remained until a magic afternoon in the summer of ’82.

The FIFA World Cup was followed by many people in Canada for years, not only by Italians. As you might note though, we are a soccer mad people. In 1982 the tournament was held in Spain, and for the first time ever CBC broadcasted the tournament live from coast to coast on national television. The longer the tournament went on, as Italy knocked out powerhouses Argentina, Brazil and Poland, the more Italian-Canadians would celebrate.  The tradition of putting flags on cars during major soccer tournaments started off with Italians. These Italians, after each win, would have a plethora of flags and drive down to St. Clair Avenue West, “Corso Italia” and honk their horns and blow their whistles for hours. People would drive down from North York, Scarborough and even from Woodbridge, which at the time was a tiny village in the middle of nowhere. It all culminated with the World Cup final on July 11 1982 against West Germany.

That afternoon the entire street was empty, a literal ghost town. At the conclusion of the 2 hour match, thousands of people poured into the streets in ecstasy. Italy had just won their first World Cup in 44 years and you bet we were going to let everyone hear about it. People were screaming, singing, dancing honking horns, blowing whistles to celebrate the win. The celebration lasted well into the night. Over 250,000 people partied on that 2 kilometre stretch. The size of the crowd was the biggest gathering in Canadian history at the time. It was a bigger crowd than the victory parades after each World War, the 1967 Maple Leafs victory parade, and every Royal visit. Her Majesty the Queen could only dream of having that kind of support.  The most amazing and important part of the celebration was that there were 0 reports of violence or vandalism all day/night. We dispelled the stereotype of being naturally violent.  We showed Canada that we were good people. We were simply passionate, hard workers just trying to make a living for ourselves and family just like the rest of society.

Italians weren’t the only ones partying that night. Members of the Jamaican and Central American communities who lived nearby came over to party with us. We were dancing side by side and they were waving our flag along with us. Everyone wanted to be Italian.  Since then other ethnic groups namely the Argentinians, Brazilians and Portuguese have tried their best to copy us and replicate our celebration on St. Clair Avenue west when their nations have won international tournaments. To put it kindly their attempts weren’t even close.

Earlier that year Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau repatriated the Constitution and passed the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in order to diversify the nation and spread multiculturalism. That evening on July 11 Trudeau flew his private helicopter from Ottawa to Toronto to see with his own eyes the crowd and the face of Canada’s multiculturalism: the Italians. There’s no debate on the profound impact the Italian community has had on Toronto and Canadian society as a whole. Canada’s first multicultural radio station was founded by an Italian, Johnny Lombardi. CHIN now broadcasts radio programming in 32 languages. Villa Colombo and the Columbus Centre in North York, which were built in the mid and late 1970s, are not only pillars of the Italian community but also for the GTA. We were the pioneers of modern immigration. We paved the way for non-Northern European immigration to Canada. Even after all that we still weren’t deemed “Canadian” even though some of us had our citizenship.

That night on St. Clair changed everything. It wasn’t just the celebration of a soccer game but also as an expression and celebration of an entire ethnic group. Everyone saw for themselves how “normal” we were and finally understood us.  We were finally Canadian. After that moment Italians began to ascend in the hierarchy of society. More Italians became politicians across all three parties. More Italians got educated, seeing graduation rates from all levels of school at a rate never seen before. Italians gained employment in more “white-collar” work as a result. Above all else we gained the respect we deserved after all those years.

For me, it was important to recall this event and write about it. It was an incredibly important moment for our community and deserved recognition to at least my fellow Italian-Canadians. It’s easy to forget one’s culture in modern day society but at the end of the day it’s all we have, It’s who we are. Our culture should always remain with us. Young Italian-Canadians are starting to lose their connection to their heritage as the older generation passes away. We have to always be proud of being Italian, and by that I don’t mean whenever a tournament comes around. We should be proud of who we are, where we came from, and appreciative of those Italian immigrants that paved the way for us to get to where we are today. We should also be proud Canadians as this is our land and where we belong now. I will leave you with the words of Brian Williams, the famous sports anchor who was covering World Cup ’82 on CBC. After Italy won he said this on television in his best Italian attempt, “Congratulazioni, e Viva L’Italia!” Let’s never forget that.